A known apparatus, as described in European patent applications EP 93202862.4, 93202901.0 and 94202533.9 (Agfa-Gevaert NV), for the processing of photographic sheet material comprises at least one wet processing station followed by a dryer in which wet sheet material comes into contact with heated drying air. The dryer comprises a drying unit positioned opposite to and extending across a support member in a direction transverse to the transport direction, thereby to define a drying space between the support member and the drying unit. Sheet material is fed in a transport direction over the support member.
The material to be dried in such an apparatus usually consists of cut sheets of variable dimensions. Drying air from the drying unit is therefore sometimes directed towards a sheet to be dried but at other times towards parts of the support member on which no sheet is supported. Drying air directed towards the support member is deflected to pass across the drying space, in a plane approximately parallel to the support surface of the support member. At the edges of any sheet material present in the drying space, this deflected drying air causes turbulence. Such turbulence results in unstable transport of the sheet material and may even cause damage to the emulsion when the leading or trailing edge is moving freely over the support surface.